>> it's the beginning of some strange riddle. what do the united states, the peoples republic of china, and taiwan have in china? well, in 2012, all three are under going elections and leadership transitions of one kind or another. i can think of no more important bilateral relationship in the world than that of the united states and china, and i can think of few more politically sensitive relationships than the prc and taiwan. in this election year, there is change, and potential of change is in the air, and so it comes to the most important relationship in the pacific. it is as if the u.s. and prc and taiwan are in the middle of a game of high stakes poker and the deck of cards is being

shuffled. i can think of no more appropriate place than right here on capitol hill in the united states senate complex to hold this discussion on the intersection of politics and policy that may well determine the balance of power in asia, in the world for some years to come. while it may be true nations have enduring interests, it is also tree nations have policies and make history. what is the process for continuity and change in these three nations in the year of transition? to help us figure out what to look for, what to expect, and if there's any wild cards to watch out for, we have with us today three experts with a stunning breath of knowledge about the political scenes in china, taiwan, and the united states. dr. way wong or victoria, is a

visiting score lar from asia's program focusing on u.s. policy, east asia, the u.s.-china relationship, and architecture in east asia. she's the senior associate with the institute of american studies at the chinese academy of social sciences and editorial assistant for america studies quarterly. she is author of u.s. laterallyism after 9/11, another book is "the u.s. role in east asia," and i'm most excited about the fourth coming book which is called "think tanks and their role in u.s. policy towards china," and i know you'll say we're the most important think tank in washington, maybe. she's written articles on american foreign policy, multilateral cooperation in asia, and american think tanks for well-known chinese

academics, journals, newspapers, and magazines. thank you for being here. to the left is richard bush. dr. bush is two decades career span of congress and u.s. department of state. he worked on the u.s. house committee on international relations, in the executive branch. he was national intelligence officer for east asia on the national intelligence council. dr. bush also remitted the united states -- represented the united states as chairman of the board and managing directer of the institute of taiwan for five years. as director of the center for asian policy studies at the brookings institutions, he focuses on u.s.-china relations, the korean peninsula, a japan's security. he is the author of "the challenge of nuclear north korea: dark clouds, just one

silver lining," "a war like no other trust about china's challenge to america," and "untying the knot, making peace in the taiwan strait," and "uncharted strait, future of china-taiwan relations" to be published in the fall. thank you, dr. bush. to the immediate left is anil, president of the group in washington, d.c., part of the democrat parties leading authorities on target campaign communications. over the past 20 years, his targeted advertising helped elect dozen members of congress like hoyer, jesse jackson, jr., john olver, and i could go on. in addition to the work at the federal level, he's helped democrats win critical state and local elections from indiana,

texas, and here in virginia. in 2010, he helped mark dayton win a general election to become the first democratic governor in minnesota in 24 years. he's a consultant if the nation's leading public interest groups and labor unions including aarp, the league of conservation voters, afl-cio, nca, nciu, and the teamsters. prior to becoming a consultant, he ran the national democratic campaign committee. he's also a cnp fellow for government and politics. thank you, all, very much for coming here today. we'll start off with victoria, but i want to stress for all of you after the panelists have spoken, i'll look to you for questions and comments, and i look forward to you being involved in the conversation. victoria, thank you very much. >> thank you, scott.

it's great to be here and so nice to meet dr. bush. i was excited to talk about china's election so this year, almost everywhere in the world there's an election, but for the first time in recent decades, the united states and china will be in a new cycle of new leadership at roughly the distinct time of the war on the stage. as we enter the final stages, american candidates, we can see on the tv, the candidates, but in china, they have the lexes using the dates of the actual

staging of the power. the international community keeping close eyes on the political rhetoric of both countries. in china, while it is overwhelming the media and the chinese aversion trader, played a big role now in china social life in the name we call micro block. chinese people demand an expectations that are increasingly -- increasing frequently in the editorial pages and online and on the blog for the comments.

in the qon text of uncertainty, what changes took place after the teenaging of power? what are the implications for u.s.-china relations? these questions have been frequently asked here. so here, as a scholar, i've been here almost for one year. i actually do not know exactly what happened in chinese leaf as a scholar, but here i give my own analysis. i will talk about three aspects of implications of chinese elections. the first one is about chinese political counter. the second is on chinese stable society. the last one is chinese foreign policy. political life, observers have noticed that the scale and scope

of upcoming change are the three most important leaderships in china. the party, the government, and the military of the administration. about two-thirds of the members will be replaced by newcomers. the country's political economics and even the administration and the potential foreign policy security and military operations will largely consist of these newcomers. after the upcoming 18 party congress and national people's congress in the spring of 2013. generally, the new generation leadership is more diverse in

their educational, professional, and economic backgrounds. in an early 1980s, chinese government began to engage new officials from different social and occupational backgrounds into leadership. you know, with the more general chinese officials mostly consistent of worker, soldiers, and peasants, but now they areog all replaced by highly educated, well-educated scientists and engineers. most of theme have better educational backgrounds, some even have overseas diplomas. some of them are choosing by computation and others by recommendation. some of them are improved from

very low grass roads. they are more cos moe -- than their ped sees sores. the backgrounds are more complex, and they also present different interests in china. with the high education and professional knowledge, these newcomers are more confident to express their. s and they are more open minded. they have stronger rights awareness as well as they have closer and wider connections with civil society. they are more open to new thoughts and new values. ic -- i think these new factors bring

new political life. they make country feel profound way to political institutionalization and democracy governance of china at all levels. for example, more members of the chinese communist part of china who study, more and more members of the party, they study law and economics and the people with these educational backgrounds come to leadership and it is good to deal with emerging social problems. the second aspect is about civil society, chinese -- the second is about civil society in china political life.

dramatic changes have taken place in china's society from south and more open,ñ&r private business to fly alone. individuals of china gradually break away from collective and national control. getting more and more freedom and rights. before this, individuals had to have national ism, but now they have been slowly transformed into social rights which are even weakening the authority of the government. for example, using internet as a tool for those born in 1980s and

1990s making more points of their civil rights and getting involved into political life. although the kind of system is not available or not favorable yet, the demands and requests have connotations on media and high level policymakers. more and more public involvement in political issues by comments and critics are in the media, and up evidentble to mix politics and make it more transparent and more forwardly. the third aspect is on the foreign policy. as the economy increases, china 's keeping a lower profile looks increasingly irrelevant and absent to many chinese

people. domestically, the government is faced with public complaints that china has been too timid from the public, the mental adjustment foreign policy. you can read a lot of articles or comments online, even you can get it from the microblogs in china, criticize chinese foreign policy so much. in beijing, if you go to beijing, even you take a taxi, the taxi driver will talk about it, the issues, and they can criticize the government so for abroad, chinese government will have to deal with pressures to

remain modest and prudent. in two years, there is a real debate going on about the direction of chinese foreign policy, not only amongst scholars, but among officials. i think for me, i've seen many conferences discuss chinese foreign policy, american foreign policy, national issues, and more and more officials will take part in these conferences and join the discussion. there's a new phenomena. the leaders, this new leaders and new international surrounding foreign policy, chinese foreign policy should catch up, should be more sophisticated. this with pressure on domestic issues, the new team may struggle to find the time for

foreign strategy. over time, it is a new foreign policy. the u.s.-china relations, in the past two years, china and the united states have become more and more competitive and distrustful, media articles and reports. observers have alleged that china's more assertive in foreign affairs, started acting less restrained after 2008. if we watch closely, the competition and the mistrust in china and the united states are actually embodied more sentiments --

sentimentally. looking at the united states, we can find that china is a place for winning votes, but public rhetoric, washington, media that are not necessarily responsible media. they are not, i think, responsible for what they have. i think both try and understand they need to show a tough -- they just needed to show a tough face to the public. leaders in the two countries have to work their ways from the public pressure to reasonable outcomes that stabilize benefits in their own interests.

whatever attitude reflected in china or in the united states we should bear in mind the reality and more and more cooperation between the china and u.s. feel so while many conflicts, interests, and ideas exist between china and united states, china recognizes the fact of sharing important ideas with the united states. comparing with the mounting pressure on economics recovered domestically and across the country so the current international environment, i think, seems denying no big wall, no big conflicts so providing beijing and washington, i think, and also as well the other countries to find a way, i mean, providing the new

government on the other countries finding a way to solve global issue so to achieve, i think, a cooperative security and the benefit. that's what i wanted to say. thank you very much. [applause] >> well, thank you very much, doctor, and it's interesting that you use the phrase "in an election they have to show tough faces," and i'll have to ask if the united states is the case with american politicians too? i'll ask you later when you can work the microphone. dr. bush, give us the view from taipei and beijing as well. >> okay. thank you very much. thank you to center for national policy for inviting me. thank you, all, for coming. i think that i actually have the easiest job of the three of us since the election that i'm

talking about has already happened. it's just sort of doing some analysis of what happened and talking about the implications. this was a very important election in taiwan. it was held on january 14th. because it was really a referendum on two policy approaches. it was a referendum about president's stewardship of leadership in the last four years, but it was also a verdict rendered on the approach offered by the democratic progressive party, the opposition party, which had been in office from 2000 to 2008. the focus of policy differences is over how to deal with the challenge of china.

the election in 2008 in which he was legislated for the first time was in many republics a negative judgment on the dpp years. this was more on his performance, 2012. he couldn't hide from his record. now, on january 14th, there were two elections. one for president and the kmt candidate and the democratic progressive party candidate, and than there was an independent candidate, and then there was also an election for the legislative parliament. this was the first time that the presidential election and the legislative election had occurred on the same day, and for the legislative elections, voters had the opportunity to cast two votes; one for

candidate running in a geographical district and then the other for the party of its choice. that gives a good picture of the mood in taiwan, but also their view on china policy. if i could just elaborate the policy difference, president ma was able to win elections, it seems in 2008, by sunlighting -- suggesting a policy towards reassurance towards china, expanding areas of cooperation, and regimely engagement. it was not naive, i don't think, but it was engagement. the ddp approach was more skeptical focused on the need to assert taiwan's claim it is a sovereign entity.

now, what were the results of the election? the president received 51.6% of the vote, and dr. sy with 45.6%, and james got the rest. modest majority accepted the view that the island by and large benefited from his policy over the last four years and that those benefits continue only if he remained as president. he won in north and central taiwan. the south, clearly, is dpp territory. levin got majorities from all cohorts, including young people on whom he had counted. now, i think dr. tai deserves a lot of credit for how well the dpp did.

they didn't win, but they had lost badly the party's reputation, was not in good shape, but through sustained leadership and hard work, she was able to bring the party back from what you call a near death experience. she made the party competitive again. now, in the legislative election, the kmt dropped from 72 seats to 64, and the dpp rose from 32 seats to 40. both james song's people's first party and the taiwan solidarity, the union, got three seats each, and non-party candidates received three also. in the party vote, where voters picked the party of his or her choice, the kmt got 47.6%, dpp, 37%, the people's first party,

5.9%, and the union, 9.6%. now, if you add the results for the more conservative parties or what in taiwan, the taiwan color scheme or the blue parties, and here i mean the tfp and kmt, they got 55% if you take the aggregate. call them the progressive party or parties skeptical of china, the dpp and tsu, they got 47.5%, and i happen to think that this blue-green vow total the sentiments among voters.

that does seem to be the balance of sentiments, and so the president went in with something of an advantage as long as he could make his case. it does also mean that taiwan society remains pretty well divided, and that that division is going to affect how fast and in what ways engagement with china is going to continue. i also happen to think that this election did well in reflecting that sentiment in suggesting it was about 54-46. sometimings elections are skewed a little bit -- sometimes elections are skewed a little bit by differences in the candidates or one party's better at mobilizing voters. that didn't seem to be the case this time. now, the question that was posed at the jut -- outset is will this election

even an impact on policy? will it mean that the momentum across strait relations and expansion of cooperation and agreements that's occurred in the last four years is going to continue at the same rate in the next four, but broad p into other areas? or is the pace going to slow? i should note that the progress that occurred in the first four years of the president was mainly in the economic area. there has been talk, particularly on the main land, about moving into political and security areas. now, my assessment is that the momentum of cross strait legal l relations is going to slow during the second term. the main constraint is domestic poll fix --

politics on both sides of the strait, but particularly in taiwan. we saw this during the campaign when the president said that there might be a peace accord between china and taiwan in ten years, and he came under heavy criticism, went down in the polls, was able to change the summit, and regain his lead, but that demonstrated just how anxious and nervous and resis tent the public was to such an idea. in april of this year, a senior kmt official was in beijing, and he mentioned the formula, one country, two areas, and that set off a flurry of debate and discussion on taiwan. there are some domestic politic

factors, political factors in the area of economics. it's not just politics. i think the substance of the issues is also a serious obstacle to moving forward in the political and curet -- security area. briefly, the obstacle on the political side is pretty basic disagreement over the republic of china which is the formal name of the government, and they take the issue that the republic of china ceased to exist in 1949. the kmt and the president take that very seriously. when it comes to a peace accord, the obstacle is china's growing military capabilities and the danger posed to taiwan. it doesn't strike me as likely

they want to include capabilities in a peace accord, u and -- and then the question is what good is it for taiwan? they appear to be patient as momentum will slow down. i think the policy managers in china understand that they can't push the pace beyond what the government is willing to have, but there is an anxiety and taiwan io tenty is stronger and this is a bad thing, but generally, there is a sort of tolerant view to what's going on. i have no idea whether there is new thinking concerning taiwan,

and if he does, when we might see it. my hope is that china doesn't get impatient and resort to greater punish. i think that would create a difficult situation. talking about the u.s. view on all of this, the bush administration, the obama administration, they were having a positive attitude towards the policy and progress that was achieved under them. the obama administration took steps that reflected the linkage in u.s. policy between the cross strait policies of taiwan and u.s.-taiwan relations. some in taiwan say that the steps somehow were designed to influence the campaign. i don't know the answer to that

question, but i think the links are there, and it's going to get expressed in concrete steps. now, some of you know there's a certain amount of discussion, at least in washington, about the concept of abandonment. one version of it is that taiwan abandons the united states in favor of a close relationship with china. some think it's a bad thing and others think it's a good thing. then there are other americans who say the united states should abandon taiwan, that u.s.-china relations are too hard with the taiwan issue outstanding. we should report it as a relittle and cut losses. i think both views are way outside the mainstream, and that u.s. policy is going to continue

alodge the lines it has for essentially the last 20 years, thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much, dr. bush. the united states? >> well, it's an interesting year to have the panel discussion because china comes up in american political campaigns more than foreign policy generally does, and it's come up in the context of sort of the, you know, i'm a democratic consul at that particular -- console -- consultant and strategist, but i take that hat off because we are non-partisan here, and those of you who watch american cable news get plenty of spin and

talking points from the romney and obama camps so i'll try to sort of present things in a way that's more meaningful hopefully. you know, when we -- china's coming up all the time. on the democratic side, you see members of congress running ads, the president running ads, and his supporters running ads that include china and india as well in the context of outsourcing jobs, but mostly in the context of outsources jobs, and this is the attack on governor romney and his record at bane capital. you see less so in advertising, but it's in the rhetoric from governor romney's campaign while this president is not tough enough on china. this president, you know, china is a currency manipulator, and this president doesn't have the strength, leadership, or character to hold china accountable. this is the kind of rhetoric you

hear more of in the coming weeks. i look for this to be a topic of discussion in debates when they are both forced to talk, you know, in more than 30 second sound bites about the issues involve k u.s.-china relations, mostly on the economic project and trade front. getting back to what victoria said, a lot of this and it was said well, you know, it is tensions between china and the u.s. that are more sentimental than substantial. campaigns really are all about sentiment; right? voters' anxieties, fears, particular economic anxieties and fears, and that's why you see a lot of rhetoric from both democrats and republicans that appears to be very anti-china, and i defer to dr. bush whether

there are substantial policy differences between both of the presidential candidates on any important issues on trades, arm sales, human rights, what have you. my guess is there's not fundment tally a big difference in american policy whether governor romney wins or whether the president continues on in the white house. i guess the long and short of it is american politics, china's batted around over the next couple weeks, and does it really mean anything regarding long term relations between the two countries? i guess probably not. i'll give you a quick run down and scott asked me to give you a quick run down where the contest at the presidential level stands right now. if you look historically, look, all of you were around in 2010, a difficult year for democrats,

a waive year for the republicans, and if you, you know, ask me at the end of 2010 or 20 # -- 2011, would the president be in a strong position to win re-election. my gut would say it's a tough 2012 for democrats because economic forecasts were nothing would get better any time soon in terms of unemployment, and it seemed like the country was in a place that was pretty skeptical of leadership in the president as the leader, though they are skeptical of all leadership from both parties right now, more than ever perhaps, but that being said, a lot has changed since early 2011, and it goes to kind of the strength of the

american presidency. it's difficult to unseat an american president. look at the trends. let's look at 1980 until today, key indicators are unemployment rates. this is commonly said over the last couple weeks, oh, above 8% unemployment for such a sustained period, it's very distled for a president to win re-election. when the approval rating of a president is below 50%, that's when generally the presidents lose re-election. those two statements are pretty accurate. you know, in 1980, under president carter's administration, there was 7.8% unemployment at this time in the election cycle in the late summer, and he was at the 27 #%

approval rating, and, of course, he went on to lose. in 1984, president reagan, there was 7.5% unemployment. he was at 54% approval. he went on to win handlely against walter mondale. in 1992, the first george bush, 7.7% unemployment. he was at a 38% approval rating. of course, he went on to lose to governor clinton. in 1996, president clinton now, 5.5% unemployment in late summer, 59% approval rating in 1996. not surprising he beat senator dole. 5.5% for president bush, 50% approval rating, wins a pretty close race, but wins.

50% of approval rating, 5.5 unemployment, winning over senator kerry. now, where does the president stand today? over 8% unemployment. all the figures, you know, the closest to where that unemployment rate is now under the carter administration it was 7.8% at this time in the summer of 1980. it's now at 8.2%. this ought to be a pretty daunting moment for democrats and folks in the white house and the president's campaign. the mass of the electoral college tells a different story. you know, as you probably all know, you need 270 # electoral votes to win, and let's see where it stands. since i'm a democrat, i'm going it use my source material coming from republican strategist carl

rove. i'll use his numbers in the presentation just to give you a little bit more balance. came out on august 19th of the map of where based on polling in the various swing states, where the race stands. if you need 270 to win, right now if you add states that rove calls certain for the president or leaning towards the president, you give the president 257 votes, 13 away from the 270 necessary for re-election. when rove, if you add up his states that are certain to go for romney or leaning towards governor romney, 182 electoral votes, 88 more needed to become

the next president so 99 seats, and his strategist, the number of countries best in the american politics, 99 votes in states that are toss up sphaits. i'll go to the toss up states, and scott can then go to questions because we're probably running over. briefly, toss up states, according to the republican strategists are florida with 27 republican votes, north carolina with 15, virginia with 13, ohio where 20, iowa with 7, colorado with 9. there are 91 electoral votes up for grabs in those toss up states. the president needs 13 of the 91. governor romney needs 88 of the

91. if you -- this is a picture of the race, and as of today; right? states like michigan right now, leaning towards obama and as rove puts it in the obama column today, something could change in michigan a month from now changing dynamics a lot. 16 votes in michigan. likewise, as of today; right? ohio is in the toss up category. you know, a lot can happen in ohio, and ohio could be in the romney camp a month from now. you know, we don't really know. it's a fluid situation. clearly despite historic trends both voters in the economy, unemployment rates, presidential approval, all of those things are true, and all of those things are daunting for the president's re-election, but the math of the electoral college today puts the president in a pretty strong position. the interesting is the polling

over the last couple months, the national polls, this is a dead even race. it's, you know, over the last four months or so, it's not changedded much. 5% and 7% of the likely voters in the polls saying they are undecided, that's a small number of undecided people, particularly before votes in conventions have not played out and folks have not learned about romney. to be undecided at this point is surprising. you'd think it would be bigger. it's been a dead even race. last numbers seen were 47-47 which is not much different than it was a month ago. it's a very close race when you look at the polls, the economic mood and environment is tougher for the president. it's going to be another close election, and back to you,

scott, and toss the conversation where you want it to go. >> thank you very much. the most troubling thing was for those of you who watch washington television, there's 80 more days of campaign ads because virginia is in play. a couple other points if i can summarize from the panel, very interesting, divided society is how they talked about taiwan politics, and i suppose you can say the same about united states, and we look at the prc, and there's a rise of a new leadership class which is exciting, but yet, statement, perhaps they find their way or will find their way with an under current of nationalism coming up, maybe pushing from behind on the taiwan side, and it seems maybe the momentum has slowed, and so there could be, and in the u.s., you have a sentiment, and i think the

candidates, correct me if i'm wrong, anil, but they tough this tough on china line because they see it in polling meaning that's what the american public seems to think, at least in the 12 states. you have this anxiety/upset in both the u.s. and prc at some levels about the current state of affairs. well, enough of my comments. i'd love to hear from you, and, please, your observations and comments for any of the panelists. please identify yourself. yes, please. yes, you. loud for the tv. >> i'm with dynasty tv. the question for dr. wei. can you give analysis how the political scandal, how did that affect the power transitions in

>> [inaudible] question was how did the issues affect the transition or is it affecting the transition in the prc. an easy question perhaps, maybe not. it's controversial. >> yeah, it's controversial. [laughter] in china, it's not called a "scale -- "scandal," but an incident. it was an incident. i'm not exactly know what the exact influence -- the influence on election, but from the media, i think the party shall deal with this from his wife.

>> thank you. >> one of the consequences of the scandal is that it won't be on the committee, and there was a good chance back in the beginning of the year that it would end up on the standing committee, and that hope has disappeared, and so it may make the leadership of the new or may make interaction among the new leadership easier than it would have been because it was a wild card. >> thank you. >> yes, please. >> i'm just wondering what impact of the china, united

states, and taiwan elections resolve on the governments handling the dispute in the south china sea and the island dispute, will they have any new impact on the solution? also, my question, would you please comment on the taiwan government handling the south china sea issue and the island dispute? thank you. >> the question is how does the south china sea situation affect elections? how do the elections affect the south china sea relation. >> well, let me take a stab at

it. obviously, leaders in china and taiwan are under pressure from parts of the public that care very much about south china sea and claims of the governments over those territories. president obama could come under pressure from governor romney if it appeared he was being too weak in responding to the difficulties, but that has not happened yet. it could. we would probably see that in the debates i think. on the administration's handling on the south china sea issue, i think it's pretty good. i think that the intense way that nationalistic publics are

focusing on this issue and engaging in symbolic actions and the way in which elements of the different governments are operating in the south china sea and east china sea area creates a certain danger that there will be some kind of clash that them spins out of control and will not be easy to manage. president's approach is one that focuses on the greatest danger of the way that nationalism and operations and maritime agencies could lead to trouble. he, in no way, gives up the roc's claim to the tie, but he does place a lot of stress on showing restraint and disputes and so on, and i think that's

helpful. >> thank you. >> i'm an adjunct professor of trade law at catholic university, and this is for mr. bush. my understanding is, and taiwan, the people elected -- it was an election, and the people participated in electing the leadership of taiwan. in the united states, there's going to be however flawed by money and everything, the people are going to elect the leadership in the united states. mr. bush, how do -- who determines who are the leaders in china? is this a party election? election within the communist party to select a leadership with the party to then become country's leaders? how many people participate in legislating the new leadership of china? i think that's important for the c-span viewers to have an understanding of. >> excellent question, pat. >> the process within the prc, the formal process, is that there are elections at lower

levels that select delegates to the national party congress, which will be held sometime this fall. >> [inaudible] >> yes, communist party paper, the congress selects the central committee, and then a political bureau is selected. >> [inaudible] >> 300. [inaudible conversations] >> more than 300. they select the members of the political bureau, and that's about 30, and then they also select the standing committee of the bureau, and there's a lot of rumors flying around how big the standing committee will be this time. nine as before or seven? this is the process on paper.

actually, the process is that the organization department of the communist party essentially decides who's on the central committee and who will be on the political bureau and who's going to be on the appellate bureau standing committee, and so this self-appointed ruling body picks, sort of decides the transition in a non-transparent way within party con sill -- councils. that's remarkably different from the other two societies we're talking about. it's quite amazing when you think about it that u.s. society and taiwan society have decided to take a big risk, and that is to let common people pick their leaders. it's a very modern concept. it takes a lot of confidence in

the good sense of your people to do that, but we do. it works. >> yes, please. >> my name is garrett, and i want to distribute questions evenly, but i want to start with something scott bates said, and in the beginning, you said the china-u.s. relations are the most important and the u.s.-taiwan relation is the most sensitive. i want to turn that around a little to think the u.s.-taiwan relation is most important because we have shared values. we have taiwan that has a democracy. those are important things to take good care of, cherish, and nurture while the relationship with china is a very sensitive one. on the one hand, we have the economic competition. we do have conflicts of south

china sea and the trying to get china to be a responsible stake holder internationally, but it doesn't quite work very well. we have the iran-u.n. vote. we have the syria vote so in many ways, it is a very sensitive and competitive relationship. my question to you is would you agree with the little assessment i just gave, or do you agree with scott? >> thanks for the question. i think that the u.s.-china relationship is both important and sensitive at the same time. it is very consequential. if one thinks about the future of the world and the future of the international system over the next couple of decades, the outcome is probably going to be governed by the type of interaction between the united states and china that's already

begun, and if one is an optimist, one will believe or hope that that interaction will work out well for peace, prosperity, and stability. if you're sort of pessimist, you will understand reasons why it works out badly, and either can happen. taiwan is kind of caught in the middle. i think that how the taiwan issue gets worked out is a very important test of what a great power china's going to be. it can treat taiwan in ways that suggest very positive things about its trajectory, and that will be good for the united states probably. ..

of the politics reflect cultural norms, immigrants in the united states person of life come individualism in the united states similar cultural carrot or a stick in taiwan and in manman [chanting] cover those going to play out over the longer term is to reflect not just this election, but implications of the current issues in these cultural carrot or a stick certain natural

characteristics over the relationships between these three countries and into the future? >> a small question, which is how do the posters are naturally hiss resid each of the three of fact in future relationships between them all? i think i'm summarizing themóó somewhat. bill, jerky hand about one? >> well, thinking about the american side, we are becoming more diverse. of course, we've got three countries involved here. we have got individualism. and i suspect it will probably remain to be kind of fundamental to the american character. but you know, as time goes on, the growing ethnic diversity of

america, as people of asian origin, people of hispanic backgrounds, enterprise more and more of the population, it will probably change our political culture in ways we can't really foresee today. it certainly won't be anything dramatic and i don't think it will last 20 years. i don't think there has been a dramatic, cultural change in our politics. but at the rate of ethnic diversity in the next couple decades will be even more rapid than it has been the last two decades. so i guess the answer to your question is yeah, we're going to change, but we've never had this kind of -- we don't have any real experience with wet ethnic diversity really does over time. it's the political culture of our country. it's going to change. >> any future on the culture as

they increase. it's in china. he only showed his official is the task. but even now in china, some officials, and casts bigger than the district. so now the government encourages this. the chinese culture, the contemporary political culture. >> okay, thanks. with respect to taiwan, this is a very uplifts subject.

it could be the subject of the whole session, that briefly the communal relations on taiwan since world war ii had been very complicated and at many times difficult. it is basically a population whose ancestors had been there for some time and then the nationalist party, which had been fighting the civil war with the communists came. the first decades were very harsh. someone would call it a colonial occupation by the outsiders so for the native people. this led -- has led in recent years, to the contest of ideas over what it means to be chinese, what it means to be taiwanese and what is the relevance of that for relations with china.

i guess one might say that if this historical tension between communal groups were to continue, it probably weakens taiwan against china. the more that the two communities integrate with each other, then that creates a stronger society and perhaps makes it easier to deal with china all other things being equal. but it also means that there's going to be residual part of the taiwan population, maybe 25% to maintain a fear of outsiders, whether they are 1940s woman on soldiers coming over or communist today. and if china is going to achieve its goals, it's going to have to speak to that 25% as well as the

rest of the population. thanks. >> okay, i think we have time for a couple more questions. yes. ma'am, right there. all right. maybe the person next to you then. sure. >> mike fonte, i'm the washington liaison for the democratic ardea taiwan. everybody has agreed there will be continuity a continuous policy towards china and yet that policy has shifted some under president obama during the last period of time to this idea of rebalancing that there will be president in asia and a stronger way than we have in the past. so the question i have is how will that affect in taiwan in taiwan through, which you talk about people worried about in the united states. and one looks at the south china sea process and east china sea and some people worried that

president maung puts it a little bit on that side of the equation. so i wonder if you talk about how this rebalancing will continue, whether it's the romney administration nor upon the administration and how they fit in that context? >> the first thing that has to be said is that the extent and depth of our presence in east asia depends a lot on whether and how our political system resolves disagreements over the budget and whether defense is affected by that. i think that for taiwan and all of our friends in east asia, united states that is present and active in the region and willing to be firm when firmness is required is good for them.

it gives them confidence that they don't have to deal with china alone. and that is good. how individual issues are handled him whether his south china sea or east china sea, that can be quite context dependent. i think i suggested that president mom is trying to balance different concerns. the historical claims of the rac to some of these maritime territories, and the ongoing relationship with china, but also the united states. and i think he came out about. thanks. >> yes, please. >> i am mr. grant from and college. i am wondering what impacts thiv

will have on the global economy. >> so what impact will these elections or these leadership transitions have on the global economy? and you were referring to the prc in the united states. >> i am not an economist, but give it a try. a couple different answers. first of all, the imbalance in the international economy and a way is a reflection of the imbalance between the u.s. and chinese economies are, that if you believe in bourgeois economics, the united states spends too much and seized a little, cheney saved two match and spend too little. and that is reflected in trade surplus with china and deficit in the united states and so on. it is really in the interest of both countries simultaneously to

move in the direction of the other, where china truly has a consumer lad economy and the united states has more balance between savings investment and consumption. that is easy for me to say. it's very hard for the two societies to do because there are vested interests, who like the situation that is it is and benefit from the imbalance. and so, it is going to require leadership in both countries to sort of change domestic and then axonal priorities. with respect to taiwan, taiwan is not a big player in the international economy, but it's an important player. the questionnaires, will taiwan take the steps it needs to take to remain competitive?

vis-à-vis china, vis-a-vis other trading partners and our rivals like south korea and so on. and that agenda involves dealing with certain vested interests who wouldn't benefit from opening up the system and liberalizing. so that is a challenge for whoever is the leader in taiwan. i think president ma understands that. whether he can push the ideas there was another question. >> for change, the economic growth as though word. wow, now most of the debate is how to does developmental, for

example, the research says that the industries and the service industry will be pleased and the recovery, the orientation. >> you know, i am not an economist either, but the differences between governor romney and the presidents economic philosophies are mostly focused on domestic american policy. but as we all know, domestic and economic policy is great applications around the world that economists can address. fundamentally, the question is whoever wins this presidential election, are they going to implement their policy with the house and senate? is there going to be demanding coming out of this election, or

that say the president wins reelection, is he going to have more compliance house of representatives and republicans in the senate will in the crossover and work with democratic majority for democratic majority is sustained because of the mandate from the people that comes with what reelection is really about. if governor romney were to get reelected, you know, can he take the experiences from being governor and a place that massachusetts and make this town work and achieve some compromise that allows for america to confront its budget, budget issues and spending priorities and make some real decisions. no decisions have been made. no its policies implemented, the presidents or anyone else's. not eric cantor's policies, not the presidents policies. so it remains to be seen given

how divided the country is right now at how this does turn out to be a close election, the whole world has to worry about whether the new president will mandate to actually govern in ways that can move american economic policy forward for his own good and for the world. >> and i might be safe to say, i think that if this congress can get his work done, it will be more likely that speakers will be pointed elsewhere outside the united states, to blame problems not on the congress, but on other powers out there. >> is a little unclear. i mean, most of the finger-pointing has been to the other party or at the other party. even during european economic crises over the last couple of

months, whether that really registers on the radar screen of the average american voter i kind of wonder. even though among economists and academics, most types are keenly aware of the states. but i don't know that really affects american politics. the republican goal has been to claim anything deficient in our economy and recovery spreads asphalt. and the democratic side is both because of the intransigence of congressional republicans that won't allow us to pass a jobs bill. sober kind of inward pointing and a science. >> thank you. well, ladies and gentlemen, we've had a great discussion here. the strain and thinking our panelists. [applause] and please join us tomorrow when

we talk about the venezuelan election at noon at one massachusetts avenue. thank you very much. >> and away i speak to from the president come up are really a speak to you from the future. but with the demographic changes i am the future. i speak to you from the future. multicultural, exigent. so i am one and i am part of the mixing board and i'm here to tell you everything's going to be okay. thank you. everything is going to be all right. you know, when i thought what am i going to talk about, i give them some titles. and i said should i talk about the taco oracle. he insisted i do that. so i'm going to talk about tacos. to may just talk about what gets

me the most notoriety, going back to this truth. i read a column called ask the mexican. ask a mexican is exactly what it sounds like. people ask me questions about mexicans and answer them. it doesn't matter what the questions may be. i've answered questions on everything from why do mexicans have so many babies that were part of illegal don't we understand too why don't mexicans pay any taxes? we do actually. some studies show where supporting social security is in it because of a document of folks pay and system with a social security numbers will never get that to buy our mexicans always so happy? i've answered all of it and more. >> see the rest of these remarks from gustavo arellano tonight.

>> on this morning's "washington journal," we have to do penance what they think of the political parties. >> after seeing the same policies driven by both parties, they disagree with the other party, i just ended up being an independent. >> i think the end of party should be changed to the people's party because the other two are just too many parties. >> the way i look at an independent voter is it gives you a chance to sit back, take a look at the ball between the horrors and carefully examined the issues and see what is not being said is supposed to what is being said. but doing so it comes down to a

final conclusion on individual issues. once you get the issue straight, then you can go for the man that best suits your political ideals. >> vote based on character because in the presidency people so often give the president so much credit or blame for things that go on because the presidency and another thought is the weakest of the three branches. >> i have voted republican before, however i would like to see more compromise in congress and marketing things start for us. >> one of them gleefully the republicans and maybe the democrats reluctantly. >> i would be willing to vote on either party or even possibly a third party that shows they had the entire country interest apart and not just one particular party or one

particular population. >> all my life i voted against the guy that i'd like most peers and i don't really vote for anybody. i vote against the one that i find most worrisome. and then if i happen to go for one who wins, i end up with buyer's remorse.

>> underrate new obama administration policy, some illegal immigrants who came to the u.s. as children are being allowed to apply for work permits. the center for american progress recently looked at how the new policy is being implemented. >> thank you everyone for coming today. [inaudible] children, families and on the communities. today's event marked the launch of our important enforcing impacts children, families and communities. that can be found on her website, american progress.org as well as we have copies on the back table. this report is the third

documenting the undocumented, which looks at my font undocumented immigrants, trying to spotlight on the issue of immigration basis thickets over the a member supported her number is rising or kind of a larger policy discussion. i think it's timely that we're having this conversation after the government again accepting applications for deferred action to grab deportation and work authorization to young people. but today said that really tells us is while the actual will go a look a lot like to help in a large number of people come it is by no means a complete issue and at most a temporary fix and it leaves out more people it actually helps. we're going to be talking about a number of people left out of this program today. so the terms of immigration enforcement, over the last few years the u.s. has supported an

effort crazy number of people, averaging roughly 400,000 removals each year for the past four years, more than double the number we departed a decade ago. and one of the stats that i think is most shocking for me is in the first half of 2011 about, the u.s. supported over 46,000 parents of u.s. citizens chosen. we still tend to have it finished the name of public mind of unauthorized immigrants to john thomas and glenn mail. the truth is most undocumented immigrants for more than a decade, most women families with children. and while there are 11.5 million unauthorized immigrants in the country today, more than 16.5 million people will be called him ecstatic families, with at least one authorized immigrant and one student child or a citizen i should say. in most cases it's undocumented

parents. we know well even been the sole provider for u.s. citizens really is very little help when it comes to immigration forces. a recent support a european university law school founded new york city between 2005 at 2010, 87% of cases where there was a parent, undocumented parent ended up in the deportation of that parent. that's almost nine out of every 10 cases end up in family separation. that's a really major number. so while we can neatly separate and authorize and simply focus our efforts on the latter group, the truth is immigration enforcement bully has a number of people and is the level of the family and the community that are enforcing decisions that hit home. so gustavo and israel will be talking about today.

the manager does our panel. all the way on my way up we have joanna, dreby author of our new report. next is executive director of the national agency of women's forum. sad wessler, investigative reporter at colorblind.com. and finally, ajay chaudry as director for policy at the assistant secretary for evaluations at the u.s. department of health and human services. did i get that right? >> yeah. >> good. >> what is it about your resource and what happens to families that experience deportation? >> short time i start that i didn't anticipate writing actually about enforcement activities. it was really interested in integration and how children of mexican families integrate into very different environments.

one in northeast ohio but there's a small invisible mexican population and the other in central new jersey where there is a very visible concentrated mexican community. so i went in and i interviewed 110 children. 91 of their parents, mostly their mothers. i also spent time in children's schools that seem to families. and their parents as well under this environment that she described increased deportations was one of enforcement, having both indirect and direct impacts on their family lives. so this is really the story of the children, not with anticipated writing about. >> let's talk a little more about these effects. >> sure. they're both direct and indirect impacts. i'll start with a direct impact, what happens in a parent is detained or deported. and actually this is sort of a small group of families that experienced this in my example.

what happens to families? it is mostly men detained or deported. and so it's really a story of seven single motherhood and women having to deal with the effects of sudden money being the sole provider for their children's, having no preparation to be the sole provider for their children. so you see changes in exec childcare routines, housing and security and course the economic difficulty of keeping everything together. one mother i interviewed, for example, in the three years after her husband was supported moved eight times with her two children. eight moves. pretty sick aftercare. i just recently moved a year ago and i'm still recovering. so eight moves in three years is a lot. there's also long-term consequences that these separations and i found that in many cases families are not able to reunite, especially the father and southern mexico. men cannot put their children from afar.

they can't find work in mexico were not able to maintain a relationship with their children. women suffer a single mothers for the long term and children's software at then becoming -- being raised in a private family. >> that's really terrible. in some sense, i know your work at the applied research center found that there's approximately 5100 children of undocumented parents living in foster care after their parents were afforded. tell us about how we get such high numbers. >> the better part of the last decade by research center, we've heard stories about families where parents are deported because of their immigration status and children are in the childbirth versus some for one reason or another. and really significant barriers

to reunifying but their parent. we heard these stories over and over again and it got to the point where we were quite sure there were not enough outliers and we decided to dig into the extent to which this is happening. what we found is there are -- we built this really conservative estimate of the total, that they're about 5000 -- more than five dozen children in the child welfare system in the country who face barriers to reunifying their parents. now, we are deporting as he mentioned 400,000 people he cared and based on data that was first released, we found that 22% of those people are parents of united states citizens. we don't know how many kids so far, but the collateral effects of that kind of massive flood would deportation of parents are going to continue to grow and one of the most troubling is

children are stuck in the child welfare system. these cases and the family's lives are complicated and the like most families lives are complicated. kids are in the welfare system for a number of reasons. some are in foster care because their parents were detained and there was nobody else to care for these children. in other cases, families have interactions with the child welfare system previously and were on their way to reunifying, which is sort of the goal of most child welfare cases once the kid is in the welfare system, the system switches into gear and starts trying to bring this family back together. and what we found was spent parents are paying, they are generally suffered from the vital lines of communication between families and children and families in the child welfare system, necessary to bring families back together. so i interviewed dozens of parents and cited immigration

detention centers and all of them that they miss at least one of their hearings, where there are, where decisions are made about what happens to their family. others never had contact with their children while they were detained. but we found is once these parents or deported, once they are sort of removed from detention and deported, they are often treated by child welfare departments and i heard this repeated, fallen off the face of the earth. as the reunification effort to often sees for these families. and in some instancescan match up well bradford well for fears to even consider reunifying these children with their parents and other countries. and so these families are at significant risk of being separated for extended periods of time, sometimes permanently separated. sometimes children are taught that and you never see their

families again. pat to me strikes me -- [inaudible] >> well, i think in many ways neither system is fun should name with the necessary degree of accountability to the needs of these families. parents are detained and that access to their children. sometimes they're able to get on the telephone to the present adherents, but they are being separated from their kids and it's very difficult to be involved in the case plans. so when a kid is in the child welfare system, child welfare defines a path to get parenting classes or if there's drug, things like that. none of that exists for people. people in immigration detention centers have no access to those services that are necessary to move forward with the reunification plan.

and so while parents are detained, they are completely set up separate from this process. once they are deported, child welfare system are not sort of treating -- these families in an aqua bubble away, the same way they would others, though there is a commitment to reunification and sometimes too often it goes out the door outside of the country. >> let me turn to you because you coordinate both the wii belong together campaign and the national coalition. so you've really been at the forefront of that pc in this exact arena. tell us about the campaigns and some of the family siebert was going going through the separations. >> yeah, i want to say that was back up a little bit. there isn't a lot of work really trying to blink the way it's moving. the national coalition is co-convener of the latina

institute has been operating since 2007 because we really saw a lack of analysis i've included in the families and you really hit it on the nail when you're talking about her image of immigrants are so kind as single or we don't think about winning. we don't think about families. but as a result they are completely incapable and systems are completely incapable of handling the really situation, like detention of parent team and pregnant women what to do with women dress fitting with small infants. some of the stories from detention centers are horrific. children have been ripped from their mothers brass and there's no access to the kind of postpartum health care that women need. so they abandoned this incredible work of trying to lift up the policy analysis about what public or nurse. i'll also say there's incredible organizing of women who are

survivors of domestic violence and inclusion with women in the national network against women was an important part of that. so one of the effort as we are working on is that we got together at the national domestic workers alliance. and to borrow a phrase from the national domestic workers alliance, they always say what you see the world through women's eyes, you see the world for clearly. partly the main goal of our work is really to get the world to see through the ice as immigrant women. one of our core strategy is that doing that is building stronger linkages and alliances between the women's rights movement and the immigrant rights movement by inviting prominent women leaders to what we call human rights delegation to say that georgia, alabama, arizona where they have been passed and really organize meetings and conversations with immigrant women and hearing and

listening to their stories. in georgia, we heard one story from a middle-school girl, her name is bonnie. and this is right before h.b. 87 was going to be passed. and her family about hearing this loss saturday on a saturday, things are going to get really kind of hard and ugly here. we may have to leave and go back to mexico. it should not only correct here. this is all she knows. georgia is her home and her life. she took an action, which inspired us all, which issue into a girl scout troop and told them the situation. but the health, wrote a letter to the governor asking the governor not to sign the law. now i don't know if the letter got rad, but that story with such a kind of compact full text read about noxious women and children being the vic come from the story, but how they can also

be the heroes. so later that year inspired, while the organizers a huge letter writing campaign across the nation. we asked young people who are in immigrant families and those who are allies to immigrant families, those who are friends, churches, schools with immigrants to write letters to congress to write letters to president obama a master we got 5000 of those letters. assassin i were in a team for which often amounts and so we're going to repeat this was for the holiday campaign this year that will launch in september. we actually invite all the recipients to help us participate in that. >> where can i get more info? >> we bought together.org is the name of our campaign and also the website. so we belong together.org. >> so ajay, let it turn to you.

you and hhs can do difficult juncture in the process at the point where families and children in the process of being separated or have been separated. you also come from a deep research background have a word with the urban institute. so how do you and how to hhs work with? >> a position from two different directions and i spend much more of my time -- i joined the u.s. human services this past january, but for prior six years before that i was at the urban institute, where we had engaged in policy research on this topic a children and families and communities and the impact of immigration. and so it much more experience coming from outside, which i try to bring about that interest into the work were doing at hhs. engagement terms of the research at hearst we looked at about 200

children in 100 families across seven states and the impact of immigration and i'm very encouraged by what joanna did. and so i'm glad you were able to do that a mother we did interview famous in the short-term and long-term and really follow their stories. they were all impacted in seven states across the country. we also interview service providers and police officers commit the entire sordid branch of the human services and enforcement start drama and on many of the same things that other people would here and race. the impact on families for parental separation and the deleterious effects that add on parent-child relationships of family security, child well-being and development. we also saw intensive, almost immediate effects on economic

behavior. again, the most prototypical effect was a father being detained, arrested, detained, deported in a two-parent family becoming a one parent family in the context and were especially in many communities some others may not have been working before and are required to go to work almost immediately. and often themselves and be unauthorized and have limited economic opportunities. so we thought very high housing security. so 42% of families moved within the first three, had to move either doubling up her face and other conditions. we have set very high degrees of food insecurity. we measured how families responded to the regular usda questions around food insecurity and phone numbers for the chart. the other thing that the south

was mental impacts on those children in terms of behavior and health impacts and on parents and also sought again using developmental scales, child behavior checklist skills but the impacts were. so very severe depression, anxiety, ptsd diagnoses among the kids. so the consequences are definitely very great. the disappointing point was on the food insecurity, many things persisted for nearly a year, certainly the separation. so coming into -- coming in at that sort of background and to hhs, while my portfolio at hhs's document services more broadly and not necessarily this particular shoe in immigration is not the domain of hhs, but the well-being of children and families says. so when i joined the administration earlier this year, there's always some sort of nascent interest among folks

at hhs. apart because the acting assistant, to hl fan had come in as the former secretary for children and family services -- i'm sorry, in florida and had seen some of these situations it is very concerned in other people had joined as well. and so, we came at this issue saying well, our mission at hhs is focusing on the health, development, well-being of children and families and this is a large group and the numbers indicated are being affected. do we know of health and human services programs are able to identify your touch these families do much we sort of going on? word from the standpoint from what is said to permit we know. the things we've been engaged in, again, early in our stages, we began conversations with the department of homeland security to understand the context of

enforcement, how it varies by different types of enforcement, across the country and that's been helpful. we've engaged internally, especially at acs with all the different programs that intercept was children and families. that includes headstart, child support, antipoverty organizations, others send these begin to think specific states across the country in what they are seeing in particularly hhs programs. we've been to four states so far. we just returned a couple weeks ago from texas could begin to texas, north carolina and very different, with immigration context at where we have talked with a wide range of providers in the community. it's still very early in labor trying to do more of it says,

what were sordid scene if it does vary about across the country, there is a lot of the type of enforcement and varies a lot on the side of human services providers inserted where families tend to go. but two things that we probably are seen as bad as just a great deal of fear in the community. so people may not come forward to health and human services programs. we don't think there's any one magic health and human services program with anything else. there's than many of these families where families could be. top of a set of organizations that i just confirmed in our research before but have the greatest contact with these families are ngos, non-governmental organizations, sometimes they may provide other services, but they are the trusted communities and locally based. these are locally based organizations and churches and

faith-based. they families will reach out, that's usually the organization they reach out to. but we do find to some degree can the sun human services have contact with families and varies by place. what were in found local community health clinics are often the safety net and provider of last resort. usually not because the family comes in inserter says this is what happened. our family has been divided because of enforcement. usually it's none of the set comes apparent in the child and pediatrician or the position of what's going on. it's usually the family is to have it back. so we are still in the early stages, but in terms of what we are doing because it came up in our pre-conversation is we are

encouraged by conversations happening on the bus or by the degree of research. this is still sort of a relatively unexamined area. and large extent we have sponsored research will be the first time as a department we are putting out rfp for research on this issue, so we are hoping will be old to learn more as we go along. >> a number of things to go off of. i want to put the solution conversation. talk to me more about what you brought up on the behavioral issues and some of the economic issues. one unshackled but more about the long-term consequence is from family separation and the immigration context? >> okay. well, i think there are severe long-term consequence is that as ajay pointed out have to be explored from a research perspective and the need or

information documenting it. but i don't and it's difficult to project a little bit based on some of what we do know based on family separation. part of doing this work, differ from family separation and voluntarily to the united states and children remained in mexico. there's quite a large body of research from voluntary migration that shows extreme negative impacts of children over the long run and this is a family decision to do this. parents separation is still very difficult for children due to the insecurities of immigration. so a lot of the research documents lower academic achievement, dropping out from children. this occurs post-reunification. oftentimes children are left to reunite with parents. you see this long-term consequence that lingers on. i saw that in my interviews

because i interviewed families in which a child has been in mexico and is reunited with their parents and they still talked about the long-term impacts of the separation on the family. we can extrapolate from that and place them in a different context instead of it being a voluntary separation. this is one enforced by the state. so imagine how children fail about that in 10 years when they know their family was broken up, not because their parents were trying to get them a better life, but because the state intervened. >> i was really struck in reading your report, joanna, about the pieces were you reported to young people saw the word immigrant every other word and real suspicion and fear of police not make an suspicions and i think of those long-term effects of our country as we

have a more diverse tapestry in this country, what kind of message do we want to send young people about which families the lawn, which family stone, whether they are going to fully trust our system of government. i think that is a really good question that will have to keep after yourselves. >> we weren't able to follow would have been in families. the parents imac in the detention centers, but everybody who i talk to who worked in the shot buffer system around the country is clear that outcomes are better for kids when they're with their own families, that whenever possible, kids should be with their parents. so when we are arresting these bear years that sometimes make that totally destroyed that possibility, permanently

separating families are where children are separated from their families for two months, a year, two years before they are for you and avoid. we know from research done that god has really done detrimental impacts on kid and every measure across the board. i think that more investigation is needed into what is impacts are going to be, but he actually deigned the kids that were talking about is in some ways are predicting. kids do better when they are with their families. and so, detaining massive numbers of parents and deporting non-mix that really difficult, makes that an impossibility for some families. >> you know, i think you just rather thought a little little more concert is some of the restriction groups would say

okay, but the answer is just to send them all back to mexico, said the parents back in the senate children that. is this about family reunification are keeping families together here? >> well, i would certainly say that the earlier you can stop this kind of thing from happening to batter, which means it's about keeping families together. all of the families i talked to said they wanted to be here with their kid. all the parents i talked to said that. and so for the mothers and fathers in detention centers facing deportation, it's absolutely their first desire. they want to stay here with their families and homes they build. his parents, mothers and fathers are going to be deported, then what seems clear from the work in education i did come of the

monster these mothers and fathers are being given the choice, aren't included in the decision-making process about what happened to their kids. the decisions are being made about the future of their children without them. and many parents decide that their kids will stay here if they are deported with other family members and that's incredibly difficult, but that is a choice that those parents have. some parents don't have that choice. >> so again, speaking solely from the vantage point of research because we -- we did, you know, although at least a year out to see what they would, you know, only 20 of 100 cases where there actually a resolution in many cases they go on for a long time, were a parent had been deported to say to kids go back or do they not? and again, this is a family's decision. we can sort of designed policy

to or discourage. for the most part in the vast, over 80% have the right to remain in the country. in fact, the country needs them down the line. now and down the line. so the impacts are -- though in some cases i think it was aimed at the family has returned together. in other cases the child remained behind all the parents watch. in some cases we saw some kids went in kid state depending on the situation come ages of the children current situation where there is a mother could depending on the status of the parents. cities become really complicated and again, the main thing is the parents are separated. and we actually had a hundred families that we followed and the seven sites were never came across a family interacting that

face a broader set of implications that we thought occurring and these are sort of very difficult. but i think from a policy standpoint, we have heard about deporting a sort of a policy option. but that is not found fame you can probably suggest has been a major policy. it's very complicated and this is a very come you know, we interviewed families in the process of making the decisions. it's not a decision i would ever want to have to make myself. >> there is 110 children i interviewed, over 70 were u.s. citizen children. i think it's very important not to lose focus on the fact we're talking about u.s. citizen children who with a return to mexico are not being integrated into mexican society because they been born and raised here. so this is a very difficult problem. the other issue is the most important findings for my

research was the indirect consequences. not necessarily u.s. citizen children aren't only impacted when a parent is detained or deported, but the message they are sending to this generation of u.s. citizen children that is really the most devastating, i think, for the families i met and interviewed. as we mentioned, the children who equate immigration but the least. i had one girl, andrea talked to me about the police. i'm afraid that the police ice will come and get my parents. it's a very powerful term. another girl in ohio referred to the police as the police dls who will come and take my parents away. so there is this equation between police and immigration that does not bear out at the local level depending where you are, whether or not they are acting as immigration officials.

so you see great fears of the police among u.s. citizen children and i think that's devastating over the long run. children are also misunderstanding. i enter growth children. young children aren't the easiest or interview, so one of the things i asked ben is to know what it emigrant is? and i was shocked because there is a guess. i would say what is a democrat? semite across the border and came to work here. so there is this equation of illegality with immigration, which is also extremely devastating. we are a country of immigrants, but suddenly for this generation of u.s. citizen children, immigrants becomes a dirty word and to stigmatize and i think that's very devastating. >> i think the fight over rhetoric is incredibly important in whether or not immigrant is a dirty word. without even the attaches, what kind of immigrant is a huge issue. we are not just fighting for everything.

this is a broader conversation we need to have as a country about who is an american family. would we consider american is the real issue at hand. even media portrayals. there was an episode in ugly betty and those are the kinds of stories we need to hear. the story of the family living in queens, not by restrictions rhetoric. >> i'll pick up a modest but because i know certainly the conversation on whether the enforcement as a whole, latinos, and especially focuses on mexico issues, but they're certainly other groups involved and how this impacts asian-american communities and just other groups that we don't normally think of. >> yeah. well thank you for asking. you know, americans are affected

by immigration issues as much as any other community. that the asian-american community is the largest proportion living in this country and about 10% are estimated to be undocumented. so it definitely affects our community in the same way. i think there's an actual interesting link between this conversation about immigrants, lgbt and pacific islanders. if you notice the numbers are kind of similar. they're about 16.1 million asian-pacific in this country. about 50 million or 60 million families and about half that in this country. so there is a way in which in our country, if you are under the 20 million mark, there's a lot of mythology being written about your community, which is why the research work is so

important. painting the actual picture, from a portrait made up of stories based in the worst of our fears, the really taken a look at who we are. and that is why the work we are doing what we do live is important. here are the stories of real-life women and their children. so i think that is an interesting link. and opportunities for more accurate data and portrayal. i also think lgbt have been faced with family separation for a long time. binational couples struggle with the same enforcement issues. anders also i think a silver lining in what the lgbt community has been doing to help with the country grapple with the idea of family and in some

way revolutionizing how we think about things. that is breaking down barriers of gender identity and orientation, but also at least working during the aids crisis, when people were dying, we took care of one another as a community. we were talking about folks disowned by their biological families for the most part. and so we formed our own chosen families that were there for you and those toughest moments. and i think if we think about building strong american families, those are the ones who regardless of biology, regardless of status and pay for, those are the people who you know will be with you and your toughest times and that's the kind of family we have to be lifting up and supporting. ..

>> you know, for the whole panel, how does this change how children and family interact and how we talk about reunification? >> i mean, certainly in the conversations i was having with child welfare department caseworkers and all over the country and with parents, the state level anti-immigrant laws like in alabama, georgia, and elsewhere create a lot of fear for families in terms of what kind of services they they they can access, but also for service providers who don't know what they can do for families, don't

know whether state agents whether their agencies may be in the business of engaging with ice, and that creates confusion and a great deal of fear. i think the state bills are absolutely changing the tear rape, and -- terrain, but i think the thing that's fundamentally changing terrain all over the country in terms of immigration enforcement is really the rapid expansion of locally based immigration and enforcement mechanisms mainly to secure communities which uses local jails as a spring board for immigration enforcement and deportation. most county jails in the country run immigration checks on nip in the local jails. that's going to have -- and it

has already started having a significant impact of collateral effect of the people -- the families of the people picked up. we found that in places where 287g programs, an older program that depp pewtizes cops to active agents, in those places, in those counties, the chances kids in foster care have deported parents increased significantly. reasoning suggests similar things pan out to be true about the community. often, families on welfare system involvement also have involvement with the criminal justice system. in ideal scenarios, a parent's involvement with the criminal justice system shouldn't end the family, but when the parents are moved into detention rapidly, the possibility for reunification go out the door. i think we're seeing this

intensification of local enforcement that really starts in washington of changing the landscape really as much as state and local immigrations bills. >> you know, i picked the two communities i wanted to do research in purposefully because neither have a declared themselves a sanctuary city although they were very different, but i think the state laws and local environments have a national impact because the children that i interviewed were aware of what's going on in other places at very young ages. i have a 9-year-old who i interviewedded who i asked, you know, what do you think it's like to be an immigrant after i asked what an imgrant was, and she said, i think it's sad. why do you think it's sad? because i saw on tv that somebody was arrested and taken away and left their daughter in the car. i think that these local, state,

and policies are having a huge impact on chirp in other locales where there's not the local issue going on because children feel trickle down effects and are very aware of them. >> i think there's a lens around racial justice and racial equities that gets not talked directly about, but looking at the states with the harshest enforcement laws, they are the ones with the most complicated racial histories in the past, and that's an important piece for us to think about, and we have to kind of predict, and in this country, as we grow racially diverse and trying to knit and heal and mix, where is there still work to do in our country? you know, who are the latest targets, i think, is the question. >> i think the only thing i add, i think the panelists covered what are a lot of the impacts,

but, you know, something says that i think these sort of sweepingly harsh legislation in states creates a climate of fear ong families, imgrant and notary public-immigrants because you can't just tell by appearance whether they are immigrant or not imgrant, but it also, i think, creates difficulties for the health and human services programs trying to serve these families because people are much less willing to sort of come forward and apply for programs, and sometimes these legislations actually do implicate, and the program providers are also sort of not sure whatted to do. i just wanted to echo that sentiments. >> this is a good way to segue into from something harsh to solutions. we heard a bit in the beginning

the ways in which you can study the problem, but what should we be doing to try to solve the problem and what are the barriers to effectively helping families reunify in immigration enforcement? >> anybody? >> okay. certainly in cases where children are on the child welfare system, and that's just not a piece of what we're talking about here, obviously, the impacts of immigration enforcement are broader than that, but in those cases, by and large, state and county child welfare departments really lack clear policies and guide lines about what to do when parents are in immigration detention or deported. what happens in the vacuum of policy is that i found it, you know, without any sort of clear structure, a whole -- a set of biases start to come into play

to essentially create their own policy. child welfare departments arguing in family courts that children will be better off in the u.s. with foster parents than reunified with their parents in another country. there needs to be clear policy that makes clear that these families, like all families, deserve a chance, a real chance, to be reunifieded, to come back together, and, you know, as is often the case when agencies, when government is not proactive about ensuring rationally equitable outcomes, and in this case, across borders, other sets of biases and practices get to fill in the holes, and so it's really important that localities begin to take on this issue explicitly, explicitly ensure that these families can be brought back together as well. >> i think it's clear

coordination of systems, the child welfare, the criminal system, the immigration system is necessary, but from the per speckive of children and families i interviewed, there's one or two things to happen from any view. one is deportation of parents must stop. children are afraid their paimpts will be taken -- parents will be taken away because they are being taken away. that needs to cease. we have to focus efforts on having priorities of having parent, parents of u.s. citizens not deported. that's should be a focus. the second problem we're in a situation where there are a lot of mixed families because there's no legalization program available to families. the families i interviewed would be legal immigrants if they could. they described trying to come on visas from mexico multiple times and being denied. i think all of the families would take advantage of the opportunity if it was available to them, but the problem is there's no legalization program,

and that's a problem. if we are going toot harsh detention and detainment, legislation efforts would make sense to help with separated children acts, and i see colleagues working hard on the bill, and the audience can speak expertly on it, but senator franken talked about the story and the bill driven by stories of a 7-year-old wandering a park aimlessly when both her parents were picked up in a detention raid. that is inexcusable. not just to think about the terror in the young person's heart, but what kind of community, society lets that happen; right? the act would put in the safety measures that would allow parents to be able to make the determinations, at least make phone calls and child care arrangements for the chirp if they happen to be detained or arrested. >> i think that's a good common

sense, humane stopgap measure, not a solution. >> i think the other thing to add, and i can only comment on the health and human services side of it, but we've seen some things to figure out how to share because there's practices communities should be aware of. in california, we were in san diego and los angeles, and both counties as well as others in some states developed methods of understanding between mostly a mexican consulate or local and state child welfare system. again, child welfare policy is a state domain so it's not something hhs says, well, this is what you should or should not do, but we can broadcast and provide information that that is what this county does or it's a model of what's done around mous

to help facilitate either the reunification or other things. similarly, we were in the southeast and heard about head start programs where families were, because of fear, scared to bring their children into head start any longer. that expanded transportation mechanisms to pick up kids and bring them to the head start program because they were finding attendance was going down, not by those directly effected, but the effects over the community. these are all relatively small things in the scale of the issue, but that can at least we can provide some guidance or technical assistance or broadcasting the practices to the extent that we can. >> so, now, nobody wants to have children suffer, but how do we

deal with the reality that u.s. population growth is all about immigration these days, and if you recommend we stop deportation and legalization programs, how are we going to deal with just the basic overload of population numbers on limited resources? thank you. >> >> there's a lot of ways to respond to that, and there's some that are, i think, purely ethical and principled, and those may be obvious. just to be clear, deportation of 12 million people is not going to happen. it's not something anybody wants, that many support, and the impact in terms of what we're talking about, of

deporting people and leaving families to struggle in need of services and it's significant. if we talk about resources and that's what we're talking about, i think that supporting families is a way to save resources. >> there's a paper that, actually, throws out linkages between the so-called environmental rights movements that have gone what i say, rogue, because i consider myself part of the environmental justice movement, and has been making kind of this overpopulation claims, linking it to immigration. there's extreme effects to women, particularly women of reproductive age because when you talk about population, who does the focus become on; right? this may be a war on policy, but the effect is the target is put on women's wounds, and even if we, you know, there is is a --

there is environmental justice straints, but we have to do more careful analysis that doesn't point fingers at one community or the otherment we are not looking at the hundreds of millions of americans who cop soup resources in the same way. some argue those with more resources consume more; right? that's part of the problem. we eat more meat, drive expensive, you know, gas guzzling cars, and all of that. it seems likecepsble reproductive -- sensible reproductive health, life, and justice policies would be a better way to address in helping women and families control their fertility seems like the better way. >> a surprising number of families that i interviewed are from rural areas in southern mexico that were mainly agricultural, but could no longer sustain their way of life. in the 1990s, before that, there was not as much international

migration from those areas, but i think if we're talking about the environment, we can't think of just the united states' environment. we have to think of the environment and resources in mexico that are being strained in promoting immigration to the united states as well. >> great. okay. i think we have time for one more question. yeah. >> [inaudible] >> speak louder. >> the obama administration's made a proposed rule making change for hardship waivers making it possible for family members in the united states instead of leaving the united states, to be able to apply without leaving, to have the three and ten year ban wave. i'm wondering if, and this seems like a small change, but i wonder if you could speak to what the impact has on this population pairing of undocumented parents of children here in the united states.

>> i think it has a huge impact. on the mexican community i've worked with for now, 15 years, but the implementation is devastating to families and issues of family unity. lawyers i work with are not able to work on behalf of their clients because the bar for hardship is so high. all the children we're talking about would not meet that bar of hardship. i think it goes a long way if filtered into local communities and what's happening. >> all right. why don't you join me in thanking the panel. [applause] thank you so much, everyone. thank you, all, for coming. [inaudible conversations]

>> multiling wall, millionth -- multicultural, and mexican. i am one of those invading hordes here to tell you everything's going to be okay. everything -- [applause] okay, thank you. everything is going to be all right. i have proof. tacos. [laughter] when i was having to talk, what

will i talk about, i gave titles, and one of them, i said, should i talk about how the ta exrrks o is oracle? he insisted i do that. before i talk about that, let me talk about what gets me the most notoriety going back to the telling of the inconvenient truth. i write a column ask a mexican, and it's what a sounds like. people ask me questions about mexican, and i answer them. it doesn't matter what the questions may be. doesn't matter. i answered questions on everything from why do mexicans have so many babies to what part of illegal don't we understand to why don't mexicans pay any taxes. we do, actually, and, in fact, studies say we support social security as we know it because of the up documented folks paying into the social security system with fake social security numbers that they will never get back, to why are mexicans always so damn happen? happy. >> i answered that and more so.

>> see these remarks tonight, part of a larger conversation about art, journalism, and race from the aspen ideas festival that starts at 8 p.m. eastern on c-span2.

>> joining us for the series, and on monday, we talked to sofia nelson from the grio, and yesterday, it was townhall.com, and tomorrow, our guest is the daily caller, and on friday, we are joined by a congressional reporter for talking points memo. today, we welcome amanda terkel from the huffington post. tell us about your role. >> guest: sure.

i'm the senior political reporter and senior editor for the politics team. we have 50 people in the dc bureau, a mix of editors, video, and i've been there two years. >> host: how do you explain what the huffington post does? >> guest: the largest online political outlet, a mix of in addition to the political news, if you go to the front page, you can see everything from entertainment news to business news, political news, food news. we have pretty much everything in the huffington post. we try to be a gateway offering original reporting and serving the best of what's on the interpret. >> host: as far as how you do your job, how does it compare or differ from traditional media sources we're used to? >> guest: it's similar. we are on the hill, campaign trail, looking for scoops, calling up people, getting storied that are under reported, and a lot is very traditional news gathering operations. i would say the difference is we try to incorporate multimedia.

we just launched a project called huffpost live, and reporters are there on an online streaming outlet trying to interact with the audience. people join us via skype, google hangout discussing topics allowing people to talk back to us and allows us to talk to them. >> host: tell us about the staffing here and what they do as far as providing political coverage. >> we have, as i mentioned, about 50 people. it's grown quite a bit in the two years i've been there. when we started, we had a dozen people down here, and we have people covering the hill, the campaign trail, people who covered unemployment crisis, the housing crisis, women's rightings, and all sorts of issues, and the people who make the website run, fresh, headlines up, and all of that. >> host: these are the offices

here in dc. tell us about the editor -- where does it fall? >> guest: if someone is lying and wrong, we don't hesitate to call them out. we don't try to, you know, hedge that. we want to fact check people and make sure we are holding people accountable. we try to cover a lot of stories that are under reported. we have one reporter named author delaney who covers people hit by the economic crisis and talks about what's going on with food stamps every day. >> host: looking at online media sources, and if you want to ask a question, here's how to do so. call us. republicans 202-733 #-001. democrats 202-737-0002.

for independents, 202-628-2 005. e-mail us as well at journal@c-span.org. what is the most important story politically that your organization's covering? >> i think like a lot of other people, we are watching congressman todd akin of missouri and the comments on "legalization program -- "legitimate rape," and that's shaken up from the race up to mitt romney and paul ryan who had to respond to this because paul ryan worked with todd akin on anti-abortion bills, but now we have the republican platform which is being formed, and it up corporates todd akin's views that the republican party does

not support campaign trail -- access of abortion even in cases of rape and invest. that story shifted the talk from the jobs and economy over to social issues which are more uncomfortable for them. >> host: as far as your organization, how do you cover differently or offer that's different than other media sources? >> guest: a great story done yesterday, she spoke to a woman who had been raped and became pregnant from the rape. she talked to her and about the comments and got a personal story out of that. we noticed that the news organization in missouri that broke the story had a woman call into the news organization saying she heard the comments on the newscast and was so upset that she called in. looking at those stories of the people who are personally affected by what politicians say is really interesting. >> host: do you have someone who covers the horse race and

we'll look at the race, not so much the issue, but specifically the race going forward? >> guest: yes, we absolutely do. we have someone right now down in tampa and a bunch of us, including myself, going down this weekend. in terms of what's happening with the race, we've been watching it. i think many of us were surprised todd stayed in the race despite many people, like heavy weight senators and former senators from the home state calling on him to resign. we'll watch that, what happens with with claire mcs -- mccaskill, and republicans, if they stay out of the race or tightens up and they throw money to help todd again, but there's been many republicans who say if he's able to close it out, we're not sure if we want him in the senate. >> host: guest with us until ten o'clock, michigan, up first, becky, democrats' line. hello. >> caller: hello.

i am a fan of -- well, i love obama, but i also love the vice president. i caught a little bit last week how they were evidently having a fight, and then they said that they wanted him to dump the haven't and have mrs. clinton take the job, which i don't think she'd want anyway, and can you tell me anything about that at all? huffington was such a republican for so long, and then she switched, and it's been quite a while. i can't remember, you know, what happened that made her switch. >> guest: sure. well, taking your first point, i think that i also heard the rumors you talked about that the president wanted to switch

healthcare -- hillary clinton out for biden. they seem to be rumors. there's been no evidence of that from the white house, from healthcare's quarters, from biden's supporters. for now, there's nothing to worry about if you like joe biden. seems he'll be on the ticket. for arianna huffington and political views, i think, overtime, she saw where she, as you mentioned, was republican, conservative, but saw where it was shifting and simply realized it was not in line where she was. as i mentioned, she says that the website is beyond left and right looking at issues like the hoying crisis -- housing crisis affecting americans regardless of political parties, and war in afghanistan, the people over there, not republican or democrats, but both parties, and looks for issues that unite us rather than divide the country. >> host: speaking of joe biden, your publication and

other things that the vice president won't be present in tampa, at least the beginning parts of the national convention. >> guest: yes. that's exactly right. i mean, i think that there are a lot of people who support hillary clinton who want to see her back as vice president or president, but there's biden fans too who, well, i think republicans enjoy seeing him speak because he's prone to off the cuff gaffes if you will, i think that's why democrats like him. they like seeing unscripted moments. >> host: huffington post covered those as well? >> guest: well as well. i think people like seeing them. i think they makes him seem human, and quite honestly, it's funny. >> host: steve, republican line, florida, hi. >> caller: well, hi. good morning. thank you for having me, and i enjoy c-span, however, your guest really just demonstrates the hypocrisy of the huffington

post in that number one she's misquoted mr. akins and what he said. the uproar is incredible, and yet, on the other hand, biden has a racist remark saying y'all will be put back in chains, and nothing is said. i mean, not a peep from anyone. no one's calling for him. he has yet not apologized. can you please explain this blatant hypocrisy? >> guest: an issue not coveredded at all, the fact that, sir, you noticed it, and i noticed it. it was not out there quite a bit in and sour site covered the controversy around his remarks as well, but i think, you know, the difference is, i think, that vice president biden was, as he explained, building off of

something that republicans said similar in chains sort of comment. the difference with congressman akin, i think, was that he was saying something that doctors and scientists just say is not true about the female body, the female body can't shut down the whole process, i think he said, when she is being raped and become not pregnant, and that, i think, worried not only democrats who support claire mccaskill wanting to see her win, but also worried republicans who question if this is the man we really want joining us and representing us in the senate. i mean, some of the loudest critics heard against the congressman were from the fellow republicans, and even mitt romney started to say that it was perhaps time for congressman akin to drop from the senate race. >> host: arkansas, mike, independent line, hi. >> caller: yeah, hi. good morning, and thank you for c-span. i'm a disabled veteran, and i

watch it every morning. i don't speak very well, so please bear with me. i've been thinking about mr. romney's taxes and if if he pays 5%, if he could prove that, what reason does he have for not releasing taxes? i'll tell you the reason. when you go to a mormon church, ask for prayer, the first thing, one of the first things they ask is have you paid your tithes? the only thing he wouldn't be able to explain is why he didn't pay tithes to the mormon church, and i can just about pay you he did not. that's the only reason he would not release taxes because it could explain paying 0% because if there's legal deductions, why hide it? the only reason would be he didn't pay tithes to the mori mop church. that's why he won't release

taxes. i'll stand by and wait for the responses. thank you so much for c-span. >> guest: the caller brings up an interesting larger point which is why mitt romney is not releasing taxes ising? that democrats -- taxes which that departments bring up as much as possible bringing up doubts on mitt romney, portrays him as very wealthy bringing doubt in people's minds that the caller expressed why won't mitt romney release taxes? i hear the theory that mitt romney says he tithes, but there's other questions of swiss bank accounts, senate majority leader reid heard from an investor that mitt romney has not paid taxes from the past ten years. mitt romney says he paid 13%. again, because mitt romney is not releasing taxes to shut up

the critics, it leaves speculation and what people dream up can be worse than what's in the actual documents. doesn't seem like he'll be releasing taxes soon, and so it doesn't seem like democrats stop bringing up the issue, but it could be an issue because it's not going away. >> host: released two years of taxes, but no further. that's what he said as far as taxes are concerned. >> guest: democrats said we want ten, but what about five? as they continue to lower the bar and mitt romney says no way. it, i don't think -- i think it raises more question. >> host: maryland, jeff, republican line. >> caller: hello? >> host: you're on, sir, go ahead. >> caller: i -- it always said paul ryan is a deficit hog, but where was paul ryan in the bush

administration when republicans was spending more money. where is the job for the tax cut in the bush administration? this is troubling so much. >> guest: i mean, paul ryan really did it because to become this sort of republican superstar, deficit hawk until later in his career. for awhile, he was just probably going along with republican parties and policies and pushed for the bailout and went on the house floor begging for the house bailout, something that a lot of conservatives would be more unhappy with except he's done so much since with the budget blue print making them happy, but the work he's known for in terms of trying to change medicare and his other budget policies, those came much later

in his career. >> host: minneapolis, lawrence, independent line. >> caller: thank you for the opportunity. you touched on the primary question, but i have a different angle and a second question if you don't mind. as a black, i was appalled by vice president biden's comment, and it was kind of like, you know, we know better for you blacks than you know for yourself, and we're going to protect you, and i was just amazed at how the media washed that under the table. you spoke to it, so i'll move on to the second question. travis smiley who hosts a national talk show stated that when president obama was elected that the media really did not do a good vetting process. do you believe that the media has moved past that and is, let's say, in depth today as

they probably were in the during the previous presidential election. >> guest: well, i'm not familiar with the comment, but i do think that the media did a pretty good job of vetting president obama and in both and senator mccain who was more well-known because he had a longer history in public life, but, you know, the media should be doing a good job in terms of digging into the candidates' past, looking at their policies, especially and trying to give the public a better view of what they get if they elect the people as president. online news helped that and has grown quite a bit since 2008. you have now twitter. you have people posting little tidbits of what they find on facebook and share it with the networks, and you have blogs as well as other online traditional news outlettings like cable news, newspapers b and so forth. the more media that pops up is better.

there's citizen journalists out there finding work and posting things online. the more you have out there i think is good. something could be happening or one of the candidates could have visited your local town, something the gnarl media doesn't know about, but you may remember it, have a personalling the of it, photographs, put them online, and found by, for example, the huffington post, we'll highlight them and get them out there. all of that is healthy, and i love that since i entered journalism, all of this has continued to grow. >> host: as part of the online media sources week, featuring a variety of guests, amanda from huffington post joins us. silver spring, maryland, republican line. >> caller: hello, good morning. thank you so much for taking my call. i have two short questions that i've been thinking about as of lately. the first issue is about governor romney and his foreign policy positions.

i was wondering whether you think that the governor will lean more towards a neoconservative staffing of his administration should he win, or do you think there will be room for foreign policy moderates and if we can see a sen tryst policy compared to the statements made so far? that's the first question. my second question is a little bit about the new media and hufferringtop post in particular. it seems to me media outlets are driven by media style journalism, and oftentimes, it seems to me that conservatives tends to breed cop servetives, and liberal outlets reenforcing a world view, and i wonder if

you think there's correlations between that and the extreme partisan gridlock in washington. >> host: thanks, caller. >> guest: two excellent questions. mitt romney's foreign policy, i think the question is a lot of people don't know about the foreign policy. he has embraced people like former bush, ambassador not united states, john bolton, a neoconservative, but he's also embraced people who sort of like condoleezza rice who people consider was less of a neoconservative and clashed with people in the bush administration. the foreign policy issue he has not cleared it up. foreign policy magazine did a great story, went to capitol hill, interviewed top republican senators like backers of mitt myth, and said can you clarify for me what mitt romney's policy is on afghanistan, and they said beats me, you know, i'd love if you could tell me. that's not encouraging, and, i mean, while i think that voters'

attentions are focused right now on the economy, outlining foreign policy is important since the president is also commander in chief. in the primary race, mitt myth was more hawkish than afghanistan with others saying perhaps we should withdrawal troops on a faster timeline. mitt romney was simply saying that, well, i think the president's timeline is fine. i think that telling the world about it helps our enemies. he has not gotten into a lot of detail yet, and that's something that i think we, the reporters should be exploring more. your second point, on new media and people going where they want. i think before new media, what you get is the local paper or national papers as well. you read, have an authoritative news voice and opinion pages where you have republicans with their favorite comments, democrats with their favorite comments, but now there's more

information. yes, i think it's a natural tendency for people to search out people they agree with, people they like to read, but at the same time, i talked to many people online, and i know i have discovered so many more sources than i would have ever seep. i can look at conservative blogs, liberal blogs, come men at a at a time -- commentators i would have never heard of. it's out there. why people are not going to it is a question, and i don't know if it's caused part sanship or the other way around. >> host: pennsylvania, independent line. >> caller: good morning, amanda, good morning, c-span, thank you for taking my call. i think senator akin's remarks about, you know, abortion and everything confusing the subject

is 40 years on abortion and pro-life, how much more time can we spend on it here, even at the point with the economic crisis now would derail on this long term thing. missouri -- you're not from the district, you don't actually know what he's saying as, you know, when he's representing his people. i've been around a lot of places, lived in the midwest, was in the military, lived in the midwest. people there i met were religious and pro-life. >> guest: well, congressman akin won the primary so he does have a base of supporters. he was in a three way race with two other republicans. i think conservatives' support was divided with palin, for instance, and he does have a base of support there, and i think that there are probably some people in missouri who are rallying around him. will it be enough for him to

beat claire mccaskill is too soon to be seen. i agree with the caller that it's shocking we are still debating abortion issues. they go on. people say culture wars are over, they prink up again. people want to focus on jobs and the economy. we end up talking about birth control, about abortion, and i don't think anyone wants to talk about the issues. i agree with the caller. >> host: you cover politics, but the viewer asks what's the media's views on federal reserves and banking cartel that dictates american economics. does economic policy and these candidates come into play? >> guest: yes, it does. we have people focusing on that specifically, but that's a very, very important part of it, especially when we have mitt romney as the nominee who has experience in the financial sector and congressman ron paul did a lot to elevate the issues

in the presidential runs giving voice to supporters who want to see these issues elevated more, and his supporters actually did get into the republican platform and a plan that calling for auditing the federal rereceiver, although it needs to be voted on by the dell galts. >> host: is there, quote, "heart burn between new school and old school journalists or is journalism is evolving?" >> guest: i've felt heart burn, and it's a changing industry, and i'm sure at some point i have heart burp because it's changing and there's holograms and i won't know how to operate them or something, but whatever an industry is changing as much as the news industry is changing and having trouble staying afloat financially, there's going to be heart burn and people who want to do one thing, people with another thick, and people who can't adapt to the changes,

people who want to move too fast, and the news industry seen that? absolutely. at the same time, people are still devoted to quality news, wanting the most interesting stories for the american public. that i think old fashioned value has not changed. >> host: if i'm a reporter for you, what's the process from me typing it or finishing it to it going out? >> guest: a lot of our collaboration happens in the front end. we have a very, sort of close tight-knit office, shouting ideases all day long, e-mailing, chatting, in constant collaboration. it's a really great environment. i might have an idea, and somebody else has an idea, we co-line it. there's a lot of talking. we go out, do the news gathering, file the story, goes through an editing process, and if it's a featured article, something for ipad magazine, goes through a more extensive

editing process, and then it's online. there's a mix of quality editing and traditional process you think of, but also we're the internet, and we need it up quickly and ensure we stay on top of the content and scoops getting people fresh news. >> host: there's a tweet saying obama scripting questions for entertainment interviews. talking to entertainment tonight and what do you think of those interviews as ways to put information out there to the regime -- general public? >> guest: it's understandable, i don't have a problem with it as long as it means they are not talking to the political press corp. where they get harder questions. it's great. i mean, we all love hearing what the president's favorite song is, what his workout rue teen is and things like that, but that shouldn't be in place of what he wants to do on medicare or the second term, what's going on in syria and what can you tell us about that. those are things that

entertainment tonight, people magazine, those outlets don't ask about. at the same time, i understand why the president and candidates do that because it's reaching a new audience trying to mobilize voters who are not stuck on c-span and cnn and msnbc all day long, but reaching other voters. they need a voice too. he's trying to go to them rather than have them come. as long as he's talking -- and after he got a lot of the criticism, the president visited the white house press room the other day and talked to the reporters. >> host: a short visit. >> guest: short visit, but people were happy. >> host: oregon, democrats' line, hi. >> caller: hi, i'm a c-span junk ky and news johnny, and with the contraction of the newspapers, i read the washington post and new york times online, the huff post is my favorite. the first place i go to in the morning.

more importantly, now i'm in my 60s too. i have a 20-year-old daughter, just put her back into college at georgia tech this weekend and came back, and she reads the huff post too. that's an important link you should be proud of because the apartment complex she was in has thousands of kids and so i think you got an important link there. >> host: thank you, caller. >> guest: great, thank you so much. that's wonderful to hear, and we do try to make sure that we are writing content for the broad audience. we have verticals, individual web pages for college students, for parents, for people over the age of 65, and so we try to in addition to political coverage, which is meant for a very broad add yensz. we try to reach as many people as we can with that, and we expanded globally and have huffington post in other countries. >> host: what's the age of the

average reader? >> guest: good question. i actually don't know that. i wish i had more data. >> host: larry, independent line, michigan, hi. >> caller: hello. >> host: you're on, go ahead. >> caller: i got a question. we're talking about romney's taxes, but when obama supported his taxes, he paid taxes on $711,000, but he made a million and a half, what happened to the other $800,000 that nobody's covering? >> guest: i don't know the details on president obama's taxes. he has released them. i think the issue is mitt romney has not released the full two years. i think democrats are trying to hold him up to a standard that he, himself, mitt romney's father said one of his political heros and mentors was his father, governor of michigan, and very respected businessman in the auto industrying and his

father said you should, i believe, release 12 years of your taxes, sort of what are you hiding, and so i think that's where -- i think mitt romney's father and sort of nip hurt his son on this issue. >> host: georgia, shane, democrats' line for our guest of huffington post. >> caller: hey, and how are you, all? >> host: fine, thanks, go ahead. >> caller: i'm a citizen who has been struggling trying to find a new source that's gone to forgotting of quality news. i stumbled on huffington post, and i saw i found it. to the contrary, and i don't -- i find huffington post to be following in the same position as traditional media. i would like for the post to dig deep into the stories and give us in-depth discussions and backgrounds and stories.

more specifically, i would like to know more about mitt romney's capital venture experiences. i would like to know more about mitt romney two outsourced companies. i would like for the huffington post to discuss bain capital, outsourcing jobs. >> host: caller, what do you think you've found on the issues that you couldn't find currently? >> caller: we're talking about the huffington post. i have not found stories that the huffington post has done that have been in-depth. >> host: ms. terkel. >> guest: sure. i'm sorry you feel that way, and the specific issues you're talking about, check out pieces by zach and ryan who have done investigative reporting on the issues. i know we have a lot of content on the site, and when you're on the page, it's easy to be

distracted by the kitten singing the cute song on the way to finding other things, and we have a lot of content on the site. dig deep into the site and find them. we put a loft the quality content right on the front page. we splash a big headline that is the news story driving the day, and there's a big headline with related pieces, and we try to highlight the up vest gaitive works. sorry you have not found it, but don't give up on the site. >> host: is there a kale -- cable channel in the future, but what about the live venture? >> guest: not that i know. i think right now, we're expermitting with streaming television online, live venture that starts at 10 a.m. each day, and i can't remember when it goes to, but into the evening. a lot of little segments. we have full-time hosts dedicated to the program. we have reporters, and we bring 234 a lot of other political commentators or entertainment

commentators, whatever the topic, people who are directly influenced by the stories, and then just sort of individual viewers who want to take part, be in the discussion, and while the segment is going on, there's a little side bar where you can chat, give your comments, and those are relayed to the people who are reporting doing the stories similar to who we're doing now. it tries to incorporate as many topics as possible, moving throughout the day, and so far, it's been great and fun. i've been on the segment. i've joined chats giving my thoughts. it's great and fun. no cable news segment so far. >> host: clayton, north carolina, gordon, independent line. >> caller: yeah. i just want to know about the immigration. they, you know, back doored it, of course, like i knew they would do three years ago. they will not charge him with anything. now, we got people in prison that broke the law the same way they did, and they are getting a pass on it, and the second thing

is this tax thing with obama and whatever, if he broke the law, then why vice president they charged him with it? if he has not broke the law, forget about it. just because he has more money than obama does, obama has the same tax breaks he does. i'd like an answer. thank you. >> guest: sure. second point on taxes, i'm not sure who you're referring to on breaking the law, but i think it's not necessarily that people believe either candidate has broken the law in their taxes. that's why they want to see them. maybe they have. we don't know that yet. mitt romney has not released all the taxes, but i think more just people want a better idea of sofort of how the candidates have made their money. there is a lot of rhetoric put forward on the stump, and to do how they conduct their perm finances, how they made their money, does that really comport

with the rhetoric and values put forward in their speeches. first part on immigration, i'm not sure what you were referring to, but if it's sort of the dream act type of thing providing a path to citizenship for young people who are brought here as young people by their parents and are now trying to earn a college degree or go into the military, i mean, they technically -- i mean, they broke a law in that the sense they came here without papers, but, i mean, if you come here at 2 years old by your parents, you really don't have a choice. i think that is why you have people like the president and republicans who have said that these people, it's not their fault. we should not pun punish them. if we return them to the country, they return to a life they don't know and a language they don't speak. so far, they are not given a path to citizenship, but they are given an ability to get permits to work in the country

for a period of time. >> host: two conventions coming up, how does huffington post differ from other media outlets that will be there? >> guest: like other media outlets, i think you said there's 13,000-15,000 there. i think we'll have a lot of reporters there, and while we are sending our political reporters, we are also trying to send people who don't usually cover conventions. we have people covering protests. we have people covering the homeless people, what's happening to them in the convention. we have people sort of outside the convention. i don't know if they'll go into the area, but covering what's happening around the town, looking at, you know, who are the people keeping the convention running, the janitors, maintenance people, utility people. what do you think of this? how are they treated? how is that going? we will have people there covering the horse race stuff, covering the poll tings, politicians, that will be going on. we hope to have other context and coverage and we'll also be

having huffington post sponsoring an oasis. stop by if you're there. it is promoting healthy living, a place to up wind a relax in the -- unwind and relax in the convention. >> host: before we leave you, tell us about your own media reading habits. besides huffington post, what do you follow as far as news? >> guest: i try to follow as much as possible. i love blogs, conservative, liberal blogs, washington post every morning on my doorstep. it's the favorite part of my day. traditional outlets, cable news, and increasingly, i'm watching twitter all day long and what people get. i got news that way in addition to facebook and what people share. increasingly, i think it's coming through social media. >> host: your favorite blogger is? >> guest: i really, i think the national review has done some great work. i've seen some of the reporters out on the campaign trail, and i think they are doing good reporter. >> host: favorite liberal blog is? >> guest: loyal to think

progress saying they are doing great work. >> host: thank you for your time.